Monique Pouget

Monique is up first, and she’s focusing on using social media tools for Market Research. Starting with tips for Market Research with Pinterest

Pinterest/com/source/YOURWEBSITE.com/

@Aaron Friedman added a bookmarklet: bit.ly/pinterest-bookmarklet

Find the people who share the stuff you have. Read their captions. How do they speak? What do they need?

[Good marketing starts with listening and learning. Some would say stalking, but let’s not get judgmental. First use of social tools: Learn about the people who might use your service. Then engage. Too many guys (yes, I’m sexist) see social tools and say, great, ho do I broadcast my message on this?]

Twitter

Discover links shared, retweets by analyzing Twitter profiles. Use twitterland, twitalyzer. Use FriendorFollow. For example, if an influencer has 20,000 followers but only follows 64, find out about those 64. Get on their radar. Tweet things that might interest them before following them or reaching out to them.

Follow up with Twitter prospects that don’t convert after the first touch.

Marty Weintraub

Marty’s up second.

“Facebook is a glorified e-mail channel with little chance of jumping the wall unless you pay them.” I think that’s what he said. Marty’s attitude is that you use Facebook to find users and you try to get them on to your e-mail list.

Facebook is a subscription list.

It has light friend to friend visibility.

The ticker neuters the visibility since it goes by too fast. We know that when friends endorse things it’s more trusted.

The Ad UI is always changing on Facebook.

He’s using the example of how he capitalized on the publicity of GM ditching Facebook ads to get some attention for his contrary view.

Summary

Page Post Like Story: Second Degree. Inexpensive, Gets you trafic to site, few likes

Page Like Story. Second Degree. Expensive. Gets you traffic to wall, many likes

Find the stuff that works with your people and then amplify it slowly.

So what are you going to do with your list?

Last thought: It’s getting creepy out there. Have an open mind about what’s dangerous [I’m not sure what he meant]

Brent Csutoras

OK, Brent is up. Greg says he chose him to meet his 2 bald guy criteria.

Not going to talk about Facebook or Twitter. He got into this 6 years ago.

Content marketing still works. It’s harder. But when you do it right it has some great effects. 2 examples.

Got 15 – 20 million views in a few days, of a Chinese gangster who lost his phone with pictures on it. Links from great sites.

Do a humor post on Search Engine Journal every Friday. Good traction from Stumble Upon, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter. Which is hard for a marketing blog.

The very best of the Checkmate Atheists meme. Got over 600 comments on Topix.com, good traction on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.

Tips:

Be prepared to succeed. Don’t see it as a band-aid, have a plan, a strategy. This is how people want their content. Have a dedicated person, team, or contractor. With an understanding of the targeted social communities. Established accounts and network. Plan for what happens after success. You never know what will succeed or fail. The biggest wins he ever had on social media he thought were horrible and wouldn’t succeed.

Monitor your site in social. It’s much better to find somebody pushing your stuff and help them than to push things yourself.

Reddit .. For Realz. Don’t worry about accounts. There are silent bans and filters. While logged out, check to see your profile: if it’s not found, your silent banned. Check the new section, see if your post is showing up. There’s no Reddit staff. If you have an issue on a sub-reddit, e-mail that group’s moderator. Understand where to submit. Redditlist.com. Biggest not always best. Know the SubReddit Rules. BestOf is only for Reddit links. World News excludes US.

Pinterest. Haven’t seen traction from the popular page. Focus on your network. It’s a tree system, followers, who have followers. Pinterest cares about eh ACCOUNT. Not the user name or e-mail, the account. [That’s supposed to be a big black hat tip. I’m lost. Sorry.]. #tags for search. Weekends and evenings.

Success with StumbleUpon. Network tree / popular algorithm. Build network appropriately. Share with network strategically to get positive votes. Stay very active. Show up on /content/. Choose categories & tags strategically. Run a paid campaign when you start. It will help you get whitelisted and identify related tags. Will also give you the subscriber numbers.

What I’m not saying: Buy me a beer and I’ll tell you the other stuff. [He didn’t actually say buy me a beer, but that was the pic on the slide]. Talk to me privately and we can talk about the things I won’t say in a recorded session.

Vince Blakham

Last, but not least, Vince. Says he always feels badly for the suckers who have to go last, especially with a great panel. So now it’s him.

If people can see the whole pic they won’t click through to your site. Something like “12 creative ideas that …” piques the interest, and gets the click through.

Large title, easy to read steps.

21 household uses for vodka did well.

They’re getting people staying on their site with their instructional infographics. Traffic converting well.

One client they brought in $40,000 in revenue in the first few days of one of their infographics. It’s good traffic.

Generates backlinks.

Quick tips:

Show off your product, but can’t just be about your product.

DIY and How To’s are the most successful. Top 12s are doing the best.

Create with multiple categories in mind

Push 2-3 times per day during peak hours. Between 4 and 11 PM.

Learn, build, measure. Tweak and retry.

Think “Resourcebait.” How can I get them to engage.

Use tineye to check for attribution.

Q&A

Q: Why no Google Plus?

Brent: I don’t play with my Google account because it’s tied to too many other things. I’ve heard too many interesting stuff about people who’ve seen whole networks go down. Also most of the stuff there has been pretty basic.

Marty: Have your PR team do things by the book, sending out a professional feed to Google Plus. Use a good editorial calendar. Just use classic PR strategies for Google Plus.

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Marty: You’re paying to be in the organic flow. It’s the best way to get to friends of friends.

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Q: Brent, you said content marketing works better today than it did in the past ..

Brent: You have to look at social from the idea of return. Links aren’t gone, they’ve just changed. Social mentions are the new links.

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Q: What’s best for building relationships?

Marty: That’s like saying which way do you like sex. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In.

Monique: I’m a big fan of Twitter for relationship builder. Anyone car reach out to anyone and provide value

Brent: I focus for different niches. Stumble Upon is great. Reddit not as agood. Pinterest is great. Facebook too, but not necessarily with the paid. At around 20,000 followers it really starts to take off.

Vince: Stumble Upon. If you can get an account with a good following and a good interaction.

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Q: Any upcoming sites?

Vince: The Fancy

Brent: Curtsy. For slideshows. Microsoft just launched one. Chime.in. Pinterest is the biggest opportunity right now.

Monique: There’s an opportunity at Google Plus.

Marty: Watch to see how Sales Force uses Buddy Media. I think you’re going to find a highly functional pay to play business network.

Brent: I should mention that I do use Google Plus. It is powerful. Just don’t abuse it.